


Nights in Red

by Shivaree76



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Gotham City Sirens (Comics)
Genre: Beatdown, Beating, Boxing, Domination, Fighting Kink, Gen, Mind Control, One-sided fight, Pain, Trampling, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-17 03:03:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16508126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shivaree76/pseuds/Shivaree76
Summary: Catwoman fought Lady Shiva once and barely survived. Now, having settled into an abandoned animal shelter with her friends, Selina finds herself staring down the world's deadliest woman once again. Only now she has two superpowered gal pals on her side. Surely that should be enough to stop one person, right?Right?





	Nights in Red

            “So, uh, you know this China doll, kitty?”

            “Oh yeah. I know her.”

            “Sweet! Any friend’a yours is a friend’a mine!”

            Selina shifted her gaze from their intruder to shoot Harley an angry glare and almost immediately regretted it. She quickly looked back to the front and was almost relieved to see Lady Shiva hadn’t moved from her spot. But that spot was still between them and the main door, and the way she was cracking her fists told Selina she wouldn’t get there without some pain. If she even got there at all.

            “She’s not a friend, Harley. She’s Lady Shiva, a martial arts grandmaster and hired assassin who once beat me within an inch of my life.”

            “Well, that doesn’t sound too friendly at all. Didja get even?”

            “I… may have left her tied-up inside the trunk of a car once.”

            “Hah! Classic! Are you sure you two ain’t pals? ‘cause that sounds like a regular girls’ night out to me!”

            “Are you discussing strategies?” Shiva suddenly interrupted. “Because if your friend fights as well as you do, you _will_ need them.”

            Tense as a bowstring and staring at her with eyes wide open, Catwoman did her best to scan the hall without losing sight of Shiva, measuring the distance between her and the windows. A distance she already knew well after living in the shelter with Harley and Ivy for the past few months, but planning an exit strategy was about the only way she could feel even slightly in control of the situation.

            And then she lost all of it when Harley decided to attack.

            “You wanna see how I fight, Bruceleena? You got it!”

            With her usual abandon, Harley charged at Shiva and swung her mallet at her head, but when it got there, there was only empty air to be found. In less than an eyeblink, Shiva had ducked out of the way and was now standing a few inches to the right, waiting for Harley to swing again. She obliged, three more times, but the result remained the same. And after the fourth useless attempt, Shiva put her hands up in a fighting stance that Selina couldn’t recognize. And that wasn’t good.

            “Oooh, so you do know yer kung fus,” Harley chuckled, pausing to shoot a manic stare at the assassin. “That’s OK, I know car-razy!”

            Raising her mallet over her head like she was at a county fair strength tester, Harley gave a high-pitched war cry and prepared to strike again. But before she could even tell her arms to move, Shiva had already cleared the handful of feet separating them and fired a straight punch into her face. Harley’s entire body trembled like she was caught in an earthquake and the hammer seemed to weigh a thousand tons all of a sudden. Disoriented, she fought to keep her footing for a few moments before dropping flat on her butt.

            “That is alright,” Shiva said, grinning at the downed clown girl, “I have fought crazy.”

            “Harley, watch--”

            Halfway through Selina’s warning, Harley exploded out of the ground in a fit of rage, screaming like a banshee as she took another swing. But now it was Shiva who charged forward, sliding inside Harley’s nonexistent guard and catching the mallet at the handle with her right hand while her left shot forward. She caught Harley in the chin with an iron-cast palm that cranked her head up. Stunned, Harley’s hands lost their grip on the hammer, and Shiva took it from her with ease, turning around and hitting its previous owner in the gut with the pommel. Harley was sent reeling backwards but managed to stay upright. And then she heard a loud splitting noise.

            “Toys,” Shiva said, holding the two halves of the hammer she’d just shattered over her knee. “Cheap toys.”

            Without a moment’s hesitation, Shiva spun on her heels and launched the hammer’s head towards Harley. But with a booming crack, a pitch-black bullwhip caught it in mid-flight, breaking it into a dozen splintered pieces. Nonplussed, Shiva turned to look at Catwoman as her whip recoiled into her hand.

            “Look Lady, I don’t know why you’re here, but if you think I’m going to let you hurt my friends, you’re--”

            “NOOO! Not hammer number ninety-two!” Harley suddenly cried out, on her knees and cradling the largest piece of the destroyed hammer. “And he was only two weeks away from RETIREEEMEEENT!”

            “HARLEY!”

            With speed born out of fear, Harley dropped the wood and scurried over to Selina’s side on hands and knees. Selina helped her back up and soon they were right back on square one of their standoff.

            “Alright Shiva, you’ve made your point. What do you want?” Catwoman asked, doing her best to keep her voice from cracking. Hazy memories of being pounded into a bloody pulp merged with the very recent imagery of Harley being schooled like a child inside her head, tipping the scales of fight or flight decisively to the latter.

            “I want a challenge. My employer, however, wants his property back. A ruby you stole from the Scatelli villa.”

            “Well, you’re both going to be disappointed then because _I don’t have it!_ That was _two years_ ago! It’s probably been fenced a hundred times since then!”

            “No matter. My employer also said that, if I was unable to recover the ruby, I was to severely punish the one who had stolen it and extract the name of the first fence from her dying breath. Which I fully intend to do.”

            Punctuating her point by giving the largest chunk of hammer a splintering stomp, Shiva advanced towards the two women with eyes full of violence. Harley snuck behind Catwoman’s back and hurriedly whispered in her ear.

“Hey, Kitty? ‘member when I said we was all thick as thieves now and were gonna be there for each other no matter what?”

            “I do, yes.”

            “I’m thinkin’ I’d like t’ make an exception.”

            “No backsies. Although I think this two-on-one is kinda unfair.”

            “For us?”

            “ _God_ , yeah. Where’s Ivy?”

            “Dunno, said she was crashin’ some fat-cat industrialists party halfway across town.”

            “We need to send her a message, right now, before--”

            “If you have any friends you would like to invite, by all means do,” Shiva interrupted again, now dangerously close. With a cold look of disdain on her face, she pointed at Catwoman first and then at Harley. “Because you I have already beaten, and you just look like a clown.”

            “Hey! I resent that! I’m a harlequin, it’s right there in my name!”

            “So one of you may go and call for help, but the other has to stay and amuse me in the meantime. Or I could just kill you both where you stand. It makes no difference to me.”

            “Right, that’s it!” Harley squealed, stepping forward from behind Catwoman and pantomiming rolling up her sleeves. “Ya wanna be amused, Crouchin’ Tiger? Ya wanna be entertained? Well, Harley Quinn’s here to entertain ya… all the way to the grave!”

            “Harley, don’t. You’re not thinking straight,” Selina pleaded, but her friend just turned her head and gave her a weak smile.

            “Lookie Kitty, I admit my headmindbrain isn’t feeling all there right now after those love-taps, but I know what it’s like t’ have yer past sneak up on ya. An’ I ain’t about to let that happen to a pal.”

            “This is my fight, you dummy.”

            “Nuh-uh, it _was_ your fight, up until she broke poor ol’ ninety-two.”

            “Well, technically I broke it too,” Selina grimaced.

            “But _she_ broke it _foirst!_ How am I supposed t’ look miss eighty-six and wee little ninety-seven in their eyes an’ tell ‘em daddy’s not comin’ home? Oh no, kitty-cat. This is _purr_ sonal.”

            Selina took a breath and a moment to really think about it. The coldest parts of her brain told her that, of the two, it was actually Harley, with her improved reflexes and boundless stamina, who had the highest chances of survival against Shiva. Or at least, of staying alive long enough for Ivy to get there. Not to mention that Shiva seemed poised to underestimate her, and Selina had seen more than a few heroes and villains brought low by that hubris. So maybe there was a chance. Maybe.

            And maybe, she just didn’t want to have to fight Lady Shiva again.

            “Keep your distance. Don’t go to her. Just buy me some time, OK?”

            “Roger, dodger!” Harley cheerfully replied. Selina turned around and dashed to the back, disappearing behind a door without a single glance back. Which was just fine with Harley. “Alright, Wu-Tang Clan, it’s just you an’ me now, so come on an’ bring the ruckus!”

 

* * *

 

            Selina could hear a wet thumping sound coming from the other side of the door before she even got close to it. It almost made her want to turn again and reach for the windows, but a low, agonizing moan reached her ears and told her there was no running away from this one. She cleared her throat and tried to gather her courage and kicked the door open. What she saw inside was entirely predictable, but it didn’t make it any easier.

            “O-oh h-hi, kitty…” a horrifically mangled Harley groaned through busted lips. Painfully, she pushed herself up from the ground and wobbled to her feet. “How ya like… m-my new… all-red costume?”

            “Ah, you are back,” Shiva noted, turning to Catwoman and giving her a horrifying look at the blood spilling from her gloves fists, which was the only sign she’d been in a fight. “Alone.”

            “Not for long,” Selina replied, her eyes darting from Shiva to the barely-standing Harley with panicking urgency.

            “I do hope so. This one is almost done.”

            “D-done? I ain’t even… m-medium rare!” Harley cried and threw an awkward hook at Shiva, who wasn’t even looking at her. But that didn’t stop her from easily blocking the punch and responding with one of her own.

            A leather-clad fist crushed Harley’s bruised sternum, lifting her off the ground and making her heart skip a beat. Her feet had barely touched the floor when Shiva slammed a massive cross into her face and then another. Harley’s body was violently tossed from side to side, like a puppet with a drunkard holding the strings, her arms swinging lifelessly and leaving her wide open. A demolishing roundhouse sent her reeling to the ground, groggy and beaten.

            Just as she was beginning to fall, Shiva caught Harley with a snapping uppercut that kept her upright just long enough to catch a flurry of punches all over her punished body. Selina watched in horror, only really noticing one out of every four or five blows. The rest were invisible, but their effect was not. Under the unyielding barrage, Harley convulsed and screamed like she was being electrocuted. And when Shiva stopped, it was only to kick her in the gut and push her against the wall.

            Shiva just wouldn’t allow the poor girl to fall. A hook to the exact same spot she’d just kicked bent Harley in half, but kept her upright. With understated savagery, Shiva grabbed Harley’s bowed head and crushed her face with a rising knee. Harley’s head shot up and bounced off the wall, but Shiva kept it there with one hand while her other slammed more hooks in her tenderized midsection. Selina recognized those punches now, or at least they reminded her of something. Of long, sweaty afternoons working the heavy bag in Wildcat’s gym. That’s all Harley was for Shiva now. A colorful punching bag.

            And when she was done battering the clown girl, Selina reckoned in a flash of terror, she was next. Unless she did something.

            A cracking boom next to Shiva caught her attention. She turned to see Catwoman’s whip dancing in the air like a black snake. “Alright, that’s it!” its master yelled. “Break it up, or I break you.”

            “Interesting,” Shiva replied as she released her hold on Harley, letting her slump, boneless and unconscious, to a defeated heap. “Have you improved your skills since we last met, then? Or only your bragging?”

            “Guess there’s only one way to find out.”

            “Of course,” Shiva smiled, calmly striding towards Catwoman.

            Selina didn’t wait for her to get any closer to attack. Her whip came to life again, only for Shiva to duck and roll under it a split second before it could touch her. The whip returned and was quickly sent out again by its panicking wielder, but this time it didn’t come back. Instead, it tensed and threatened to drag Catwoman towards Shiva, who’d blocked it with her heavy leather sleeve and was now holding it in an unbreakable grip. A short tug of war ensued between the two women, which lasted until Selina realized every second was bringing her closer to Shiva.

            With an angry gasp, Selina let go of her weapon, gambling that Shiva wouldn’t turn it against her. The gamble paid off, as Shiva snatched the whip’s handle off the air and inspected it for a moment before throwing it over her shoulder with a sneer. “Slightly more expensive,” she said, “yet still a toy.”

            “I know you’re probably feeling pretty good with yourself right now, Shiva, but if I was you? I’d start running. Because in about two minutes, our roomie’s coming over. And when she sees what you just did to the one woman she loves more than anything in this world… it’s going to get ugly.”

            “How promising,” Shiva answered, with a smile slashed across her lips. “I think I shall stay a while longer, then.”

            “I’m telling you this for your own good, Shiva. Just walk away.”

            “If you really cared about my own good, you would come over here and help me warm up,” she cut in and nodded towards the twitching, broken mass of black and red curled up next to the wall. “Your friend left me rather cold.”

            Two minutes, Selina told herself as she popped her claws. Just two minutes. She could handle two minutes. She could survive that long. She could do it. Just two minutes.

            But after having all of her opening slashes parried and eating an elbow to the face, Selina wondered if she could survive one.

            “Guuh!” she grunted, backing away and fighting to ward off the encroaching feeling of déjà vu. But she was as successful at that as she was at warding off Shiva herself, who stepped into her feeble guard with a stiff kick to her ribs. She could almost hear them cracking under her skin.

            It took a great deal of focus from Selina to put her guard up and protect her torso, but Shiva switched targets and the next kick hit the reeling Catwoman square in the shins. Wincing in pain, Selina fell to one knee with a whimper, her brain shouting at her to get up or roll away or do anything. Then Shiva caught her with a roundhouse to the side of the face and it was like her mind had been put on mute.

            The next thing she knew, Selina was crawling on the floor, her body instinctively trying to drag her away from… something. She couldn’t remember what or who, but somewhere off in the distance, she heard a voice that made the blood pumping through her veins run cold.

            “Some time after our last encounter, I was informed you had been trained by Ted ‘Wildcat’ Grant. I did not believe it then, and I believe it even less now,” the voice taunted Selina as she slowly became more aware of her body and the indescribable pain running through it.

            It wasn’t just brute force that caused it. Shiva’s fists were certainly hard, but she hadn’t carelessly bludgeoned her into a mess. Instead, every single strike seemed to connect at the perfect place to cause sheer, blinding agony. Four had been all it took to get Selina on the floor. Four perfectly aimed shots, with no mistakes between them. Except for one: badmouthing her teacher.

            “S-scruh… yuh,” Selina mumbled, pushing the pain deep inside and climbing back up. “Yuh don’ get to… talk about Ted… like that.”

            “You misunderstand me. I have nothing but respect for the man. Unlike you, who seem to have forgotten everything he taught you. If he indeed taught you.”

            Back on her feet, Selina spat out a gob of blood and put her fists up. “You want some of that Wildcat action, lady?”

            “By all means,” Shiva replied, and put her own hands up in a boxing stance of her own. Through her flawless guard, Selina caught a glimpse of that damned wolfish grin of hers. She thought about shooting it back to her, but figured she needed all the energy she had for what was about to happen.

            It was Shiva who attacked first, putting Selina on the defensive right away. Up close and fighting in a way she was deeply familiar with, Selina actually saw the blows coming and could at least manage to dodge or block most of them. But they were still coming in too fast for her to get a word in edgewise, and worse still, there was the creeping sensation that Shiva wasn’t actually aiming to hurt. She was just probing her.

            In a blitz of desperation, Selina exploded forward with a careless one-two, hoping to surprise Shiva and get out of her rhythm before it was too late. That’s when she realized it was already too late. Like a gust of wind, Shiva floated around and under Selina’s punches and detonated a fistful of TNT on her belly. The crude, raw sound of leather against leather, Shiva’s gloves against Selina’s suit, echoed in the hall, only to be drowned by a choked scream.

            “GAHHK!” Selina yelled, a split second before Shiva caught her in the jaw with a follow-up hook that was just the first of many.

            Several textbook combinations flowed and crashed into the besieged Catwoman, pummeling her from every which way with humiliating ease. Dizzy and nauseous, Selina tried to fill what she perceived to be gaps in the beating with some punches of her own, but Shiva saw them coming every single time. It almost seemed like she was making those holes on purpose, to lure Selina into at least trying to mount something resembling an offense. Playing with her. Again.

            Eventually, as Selina’s counter attacks lost all steam, the gaps disappeared and the fight became Shiva’s. But then again, it always was. With machine-gun cadence she peppered her opponent’s quivering body with endless jabs and straights, and when Catwoman’s arms made the inhuman effort to cover her head, Shiva got to work on her body. Just like she had pounded Harley into submission, she turned Selina into a punch-drunk sandbag, slamming meaty hooks into increasingly soft muscles to turn them into rubble. Soon, Selina’s midsection was too sore to even tighten up. And that was when the real pain started.

            With a sudden stab of her hands, Shiva swatted Selina’s limp arms out of the way and slammed two hard straights into her chest, then a deep uppercut in her gut. With her abs pummeled to oblivion, there was nothing protecting her organs from Shiva’s ruthless fist. Blood, drool and what precious little air Selina had left in her overworked lungs blasted out of her mouth while her eyes rolled into the back of her skull. As beaten as she’d ever been in her life, Catwoman’s whole body went limp and slumped onto Shiva in the world’s slackest clinch. Her vision was swimming in the small, lone spot that wasn’t entirely dark yet. A slap could have knocked her out, and a punch would’ve killed her.

            But neither one came. Instead, Shiva just let her rest on her shoulder and looked down at something below them. Selina’s eyes dropped along with her head and she saw a mass of black and red wrapped like a puppy around Shiva’s long, toned leg.

            “A-alrighty,” the thing said in a pitiful voice, “m-my turn n-now.”

            “Har… ley?” Selina groaned in pain.

            “Oww, hi kit-ty. Howzit… hangin’?”

            Selina felt like laughing, but her punished frame begged her to reconsider. Instead, she just stayed there, cracking a weak smile at the mangled mess that was her friend while tears started rolling out of her eyes. She opened her mouth to say something when suddenly Shiva decided that was enough camaraderie for a day, and kicked Harley off her leg. She rolled face up and gave a low whine, then twitched a few times before falling deathly still. Selina tried to reach towards her, stretching her arm as far as she could, when suddenly she felt two hands grip it tightly.

            The next thing she knew, the world was upside down and she was flying through the air and Selina wondered if she’d land in Heaven or Hell. Instead, she landed on Harley.

            “Ough!”

            “Gwagk!”

            Piled up on top of her friend and dazed by the sudden motion, Selina opened her eyes just in time to see Shiva step on her belly. A silent scream choked her throat while Harley trembled underneath her. At least she was still alive, Selina thought, but then she started shaking harder, accompanied by a rumbling noise that filled her with dread. Was it just fear -- the same fear she was feeling, or was her friend having her final, violent spasms before dying for good? Had she pushed her too far? Was this how it was all going to end? Beaten to death and trampled underfoot by a woman who saw them as just human-sized bags of trash? There had to be better ways to go.

            “H-hey, kitty… y-ya feel that too?” Harley whispered into Selina’s ear.

            “Don’t… talk, Harl. And s-stop shaking. Don’t t-try to move.”

            “It’s not me, kitty. It’s the ground.”

            “The… ground?”

            And then she heard it. The rumbling sound again, coming from below them but also all around. Growing louder. Getting closer. Until it was the only thing she could hear. At least, until the windows shattered and the front door was bashed open and a sea of green spilled into the hall. Thick vines crawled inside from the broken windows and a massive red flower emerged from the main door. The flower opened its petals and inside was a goddess with a flair for the dramatics and a terrible sense of time.

            But even late, Selina and Harley couldn’t have been happier to see Pamela.

            “Step away from the girls,” she said, in a voice that seemed amplified by the hundreds of flowers scattered throughout the vines that surrounded her. It was enough to make everyone, even Shiva, stand in awe for a moment. With eyes wide open she lifted her foot from the two piled-up bodies and turned to face the goddess head-on. A wild fire burned inside her eyes, hot enough to make Poison Ivy feel a bit nervous for a moment. But just for a moment.

            “Hiiiya Red~” Harley called out in a weak whimper.

            “Don’t try to move, Harley.”

            “Aww, you too?”

            “No way that was… t-two minutes,” Selina offered.

            “Had to lose a couple of Bats before I got here.”

            “Maybe you should’ve brought them with you.”

            “Are you kidding? I don’t want anyone standing between me and the kind of Hell I’m about to visit on this bastard right here,” Ivy replied, in a tone that told Selina she wouldn’t want to stand between them either. “You hear me, Shiva? I’m giving you ten seconds to choose your last words!”

            “Finally,” Shiva answered without a thought, “a challenge.”

            “That’ll have to do.”

            With a furious snarl and a flick of her hands, Poison Ivy commanded two long, thin vines covered in more thorns that even she could count to attack Lady Shiva. A split second before they could touch her, she was already gone, leaping high into the air to avoid them. She landed and rolled out of the way of another sweep, but Ivy added two more vines to the mix and Shiva quickly found herself desperately dodging the deadly plants from all sides.

            “Yeah, git her Red! Tan her hide!” Harley cheered from the ground.

            The relentless, whip-like vines continued boxing Shiva in until she was backed up against a wall. Ivy allowed her babies to hover in front of their trapped prey for a moment, their bulbs opening to reveal four massive mutated flytraps covered in sharp teeth that oozed with sap, then ordered them to strike. Four sets of jaws closed on something black, but when they opened, only the tattered remains of a leather jacket fell from their mouths.

            “What the…?”

            A booming crack interrupted Ivy’s question and replaced it with a piercing cry as one of the four vines was cut in half. Puzzled, she looked at it and her eyes followed a long, black whip as it danced in the air for a few moments before coiling back to its new owner. Somehow, Shiva had slipped through her attack and gotten her hands on Catwoman’s discarded whip. And all she had lost was her jacket.

            “You… I’ll rip you to shreds for that!”

            Shiva was about to answer when Ivy’s patience ran out. The three remaining vines all swung at her again, with several more joining the fray, but now Shiva had a way to fight back. Chopped plant parts rained upon the entrance hall floor, already littered with blood and glass, where they thrashed around in pain. A pain they shared with their mother, whose hatred for the woman who was so rudely trimming her garden was growing by the second.

            Deciding that Shiva had earned a worse kind of death and that she needed more time to think about one, Ivy sent half a dozen vines after Shiva. Brandishing her whip with incredible expertise, Shiva cut right through all of them. But the very last one, the one that had gotten the closest to her, released a thick purple cloud on Shiva’s face. And the world around her came undone.

            For a few tense moments, Ivy kept her vines at the ready while Shiva coughed and choked on the spores. But when she finally let go of the whip and dropped to her knees, Ivy allowed herself to relax. Taking a long, satisfied breath, she climbed down from her floral throne and stepped into the cold stone floor. A short, triumphant stroll later, she was the one looking down on a squirming Shiva.

            “Look at me,” she ordered. And Shiva complied. Her mouth was half open as she sucked wind and her face was drenched in sweat, but the most important thing, what Ivy always looked for first and foremost, were her eyes. The flame in them flickered still, but much weaker now. Barely a matchstick compared to the fire she’d seen before. Still, better safe than sorry, Pamela reckoned, and leaned down to blow another cloud of spores from her lips to Shiva.

            “Gaah! Aughhh!” she continued to choke with renewed violence, until her hands had to hold onto the floor to keep herself from falling unconscious. Then Ivy reached down and grabbed a handful of her hair to pull her back up.

            “Look. At. Me!” Ivy growled, and stared deeply into her eyes until that lonesome, flickering light was snuffed. And then there was nothing.

            Shiva’s stare became empty and crystallized. Her throat stopped making any noise and her hands fell to her sides. Her bare arms relaxed and her body slumped. For a moment, Ivy could swear there was even a thin string of drool eking out of her mouth. But that was just wishful thinking. For now. Her rage subsiding into cold hatred, Pamela brushed Shiva’s warm cheek with her thumb, to no reaction.

            “Now stand, and receive your punishment,” she commanded. And Shiva complied again. As soon as she was back to full height, Ivy crossed her face with a slap. But apart from her reddening cheek, Shiva had no reaction at all. No defiance, no rebellion, not even a hint of struggle. She’d had to give her a double dose, true, but it was still surprising to see her spores working so quickly on her.

            “Woo-ee! Go Red go!” Harley cheered as Selina crawled off her. They were both still too busted up to get up, but they didn’t need to anymore. Not now that Ivy was here and their attacker was wrapped around her finger. “Got her right where ya want her!”

            “Where we _all_ want her.”

            “Pam, listen, she was hired to--”

            “Selina, dear, I couldn’t care less why she’s here. All I know is she hurt Harley. For that, she dies. Slowly. Painfully. But don’t worry,” Ivy said, turning to look at her friends with a devious smile. “I’ll let you have some fun with her before I feed her in pieces to my babies.”

            “Oh, oh, I wanna play Whack-a-Mole with her hands an’ feetsies!”

            “Do we… really want to…?” Selina asked but trailed off as she tried and failed to imagine any possible repercussions of killing Lady Shiva. Who could come looking for her? Who would vow to avenge her death? The League? Her master? Her students? Did she even have anything like that? The truth, of course, was that Selina didn’t want to be involved in cold-blooded murder. But the more she tried to think of a good reason to stop Harley and Ivy, the more her body ached with the agonizing pain Shiva had brought her. Twice now.

            “Aw c’mon, Kitty, don’tcha wanna just dig yer claws into them muscles? Slice up some tendons? Give her a nice long whipping across the back? Y’know, fun stuff!” Harley suggested.

            “I have a few ideas of my own. And they all end in compost,” Pamela picked up. But Selina looked at Shiva’s empty, dead-eyed expression, and her heart felt as heavy as the rest of her body.

            “I… I don’t know, girls, I just…”

            “Look, you’ve obviously taken a few bumps to the head, so here’s what we’re going to do,” Ivy cut in, taking as much control of the conversation as she’d taken control of Shiva: “I’m going to tie her up nice and cozy, then I’m going to take care of both of you, and if nobody comes to fetch her by the time you two have healed, it’s fun and games time.”

            “Fun AND games? Aww Red, you spoiler!”

            “Anything for my Harl,” Ivy chuckled and turned back to Shiva. Their faces were inches away but couldn’t be more different as Pamela relished her victory over the so-called most dangerous woman in the world. “You know, for a woman of your age, you are quite the looker. I wonder if you’re half as good at pleasing people as you are at hurting them. Maybe I’ll give you a chance to demonstrate, mm? See if you can use that tongue like you use those fists?”

            Shiva didn’t answer, but Ivy noticed something strange going on with her face. She still looked completely relaxed. Her mouth was still open. Her cheeks were still rosy. And yet, her eyes seemed to be shifting. Deep behind the clouds covering her irises, a tiny light could be seen, like a lamp in the middle of a foggy marsh. Ivy grabbed her head with both hands and pulled her up close to see, but Shiva just closed her eyes and gave a long, deep exhale.

            The fire in her eyes was there again when she opened them. And instead of heating Ivy, it froze her to the spot.

            “N-no, impossi--GUH!!!”

            The word transformed into a wheezing grunt as Shiva dug her fist deep inside Ivy’s belly. Her face twisted into a dazed mix of pain and bewilderment that was not miles away from the one Shiva herself had just sported. Wholly unprepared for the savage attack, Ivy quivered all over as her vision blurred and the woman in front of her turned into three and then five identical twins. But the smile in their faces was as clear as rain.

            Struggling to catch her breath, Ivy clutched her wrecked midsection and bent over, her swimming vision filling with a ground littered with wilting plants that just wouldn’t stop turning. She hoped that maybe focusing on that would help her get her bearings again, but Shiva took a handful of her red hair and pulled her head up until their gazes met again. And then Ivy realized just how far the tables had turned.

            “H-how…?”

            “You should thank the assassin, Cheshire. I have been honing my internal qigong techniques ever since she poisoned me. And breaking down poisons is one of the basest.”

            “B-bull… sh--”

            Shiva let go of Ivy’s hair and her head hung low again. So she didn’t get to see the half circle that Shiva drew with her foot in front of her as she lifted her leg high in the sky. But she did feel her heel crashing down on the back of her head and smashing her face-first into the ground.

            “For what it is worth, your toxin was exquisite,” Shiva admitted, and stomped hard on Ivy’s head. “The results were immediate. Your control was overwhelming. Had we met a year or two ago, the outcome might have been different,” she continued, stomping her again after every sentence, until the ground was stained red. “You may take comfort in that.”

            “Shiva, stop! You’re killing her!” Selina shouted from a few feet that seemed to stretch into miles.

            “Would you like to take her place? That can be arranged.”

            “Stop hurtin’ my Ivy!” Harley then cried, having recovered much faster than Selina, and pounced on Shiva with clenched fists and tears in her eyes.

            Shiva’s response was a reverse roundhouse with the same leg that sent Harley spinning into the air and blissful unconsciousness. And just to show Selina where she stood, Shiva used the momentum to give Ivy’s head one last brutal stomp, knocking her out cold as well.

            “One last chance. The ruby, the fence, or the lives of everyone in here.”

            Battered beyond belief and barely hanging on, Catwoman grit her teeth for a moment trying to see if she had any fight left in her body. But she didn’t. To try and tell herself otherwise would’ve been a lie, and a suicidal one at that. So instead, she just rose to her knees and slowly reached into her belt, evading Shiva’s gaze like a whipped dog. A dull red ruby appeared in her hand.

            “Here,” she mewled out. “Just take it and leave us alone. Please.”

            Shiva complied. Stepping off Ivy’s cracked skull, she walked up to Selina like she was crossing the street and snatched the gem from her quivering hands. She stared at the reduced Catwoman for a moment, long enough for all of Selina’s life to flash before her eyes, then turned away towards the door.

            When she was gone, Selina drew what felt like the first breath of her entire life, fell on her back, closed her eyes, and let the exhaustion wash over her. Tomorrow would be hell, and the day after too. But right then, all she wanted was to sleep. And she didn’t care if it was forever.

 

* * *

 

 

            “A _fake?!_ ” Ivy screamed, slamming the breakfast table.

            “Owww… not so loud, Red, pleez…”

            “Look, I told her the truth. That stone was long gone. All I had was the replica I’d gotten made for the heist that I didn’t even need to use in the end.”

            “Oh, for the love of… did that beating turn you into a masochist, or just an idiot? Because what do you think she’ll do once she finds out?”

            “The fake is impossible to differentiate from the real one. It should be more than enough to dupe that goon Scatelli.”

            “And what if it isn’t? What if he sends her here again?”

            “We’ll… think of something. Put our heads together.”

            “Uh, girls?”

            “That’s your plan? Brainstorming?”

            “Well it’s better than getting our brains stomped!”

            “Ladies?”

            “So what are we going to do, call the cops? The National Guard? Your _boyfriend_?”

            “He is NOT my boy--”

            “HEY, A-HOLES!”

            “WHAT?!” Pamela and Selina shouted at the same time, turning their bandaged heads towards Harley.

            “What didja say the goon was called?”

            “Scatelli. Why?”

            With a low whistle, Harley pointed at the TV. Vicki Vale was standing in front of a manor surrounded by Gotham’s finest, a mic in her hand, like always.

            “Thank you, Tom. Behind me is Villa Scatelli, home to alleged mob boss Carlo Scatelli, who was found murdered alongside more than a dozen of his bodyguards earlier today. Details on the crime are still sketchy and the GCPD will be making a full statement later, but despite ample evidence of a gunfight, sources suggest that the victims were all somehow beaten to death rather than shot. We will be following this story as it develops.”

            Picking their sore jaws from the floor, Selina, Harley and Ivy all looked at each other for a moment as a rumbling laugh began climbing from their throats. It lasted only a few seconds before being replaced by a pained wheezing, but it was more than enough.


End file.
